Christoph Buescher wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm having a small problem in testing an UIMA annotator. My annotator
> XYZ extends JCasAnnotator_ImplBase which I understands, implements part
> of the AnalysisComponent interface.
> I usually create my test annotator from an AnalysisEngintDesrition like
> this:
>
> AnalysisEngine testAnnotator = produceAnalysisEngine(some
> AnalysisEngineDescription);
>
> This is fine as long as I want to call methods like process() or
> initialize() from the AnalysisEngine interface.
> Now my annotator XYZ has some additional public methods to get internal
> state information like XYZ.getFoo() which I want to call, which cant be
> done via the AnalysisEngine interface. I also can't cast the
> AnalysisEngine to my annotator XYZ because this extends
> AnalysisComponent and both don't seem to be directly connected in the
> class hirarchy.
>
> So here's my question: somehow UIMA needs to internally know the
> connection between my AnalysisEngine instance and my custom
> implementation class XYZ to be able to route method calls (like
> process()) to it. Can I somehow get the "AnalysisComponent" instance
> underlying an AnalysisEngine to be able to cast to my annotators class?
> Otherwise I can't test any additional public methods I added to my
> annotator. Any hints appreciated.
>
> Christoph Büscher
Hi Christoph,
the short answer is "no". UIMA does not allow you to access
the components it's running. They could be running anywhere,
anyhow.
As a workaround, for testing only, you can add a static
accessor to your annotator, like this:
public class AccessibleAnnotator extends JCasAnnotator_ImplBase {
private static AccessibleAnnotator instance = null;
public static AccessibleAnnotator getInstance() {
return instance;
}
public AccessibleAnnotator() {
super();
AccessibleAnnotator.instance = this;
}
@Override
public void process(JCas cas) throws AnalysisEngineProcessException {
// Implement...
}
}
I do not recommend this, however. Why do you need to test
public methods on your annotator that you can't later use
anyway?
HTH,
Thilo
